Theseus and the Minotaur: A Peek into Ancient Greek Mythology

Tianna Sharma Phukan

Everyone has heard of ancient Greece.

It was one of the greatest civilizations in the ancient world.

An integral part of this civilization is their many deities and other mythological creatures and beings. The ancient Greeks had a vivid imagination which is evidently seen in their depiction of mythological creatures.

One of the most famous of these is the Minotaur. A creature born to the queen of Crete and their palace bull, the Minotaur is depicted to have the head and tail of a bull and the body of a man.

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Another important aspect of Greek mythology is their demigods, children of the gods and humans and Theseus, was one of the most celebrated demigods of ancient Greek mythology.

Minos was the prince of Crete. When he ascended the throne of Crete, he fought with his brothers. Minos prayed to the sea god Poseidon to send him a white bull as a sign of the god’s favor. The bull was to be sacrificed to Poseidon. But the king was too greedy, he was mesmerized by the bull’s beauty and decided to keep it for himself as a part of his herd.

So, on the day of the sacrifice, he butchered an ordinary cow from his heard instead. The sea god was infuriated by this and decided that such insolence and disrespect for the gods could not go unpunished. In his anger and fury, he cursed the majestic bull to become a monster that invoked terror itself in the people of Crete. All of this madness had caught the eyes of a different god as well, Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty.

Theseus and the Minotaur: A Peek into Ancient Greek Mythology — Minotaur

Aphrodite was known for her notoriously mischievous nature. She saw this as a perfectly good opportunity to stir up even more trouble and used her powers to make the king’s wife, Queen Pasiphae, fall in love with the Cretan Bull. Struck by Aphrodite’s curse, the queen became smitten with the majestic creature and tried to approach it. But the bull denied her advances and rejected her.

But the queen was hell-bound, so she brought a talented Greek architect and inventor known as Dedalus to help her. Dedalus made her a special contraption that resembled a cow and had a special chamber inside of it where Pasiphae could lay down. Witch the help of this device, Pasiphae was finally able to achieve her union with the great beast.

However, when the fruit of this union was born, the people were terrified. The king was furious, because his wife had given birth to a hideous monster with the body of a man and the legs and tail of a bull. As the Minotaur grew older, his aggressive and rash behavior started to grow out of hand. Soon, he was so out of control that the king decided to take matters into his own hand.

He asked Dedalus to build him a prison such that his demonic son would never be able to escape. And so, Dedalus designed a prison for him. He designed a maze that later came to be known as the Labyrinth. Every year, Dedalus sent two of his prisoners as human sacrifices into the Labyrinth. These unlucky people were brutally killed and eaten by the Minotaur. However, the great beast would finally meat its end when faced by the great hero Theseus.

Theseus was said to be the illegitimate demigod son of the god Poseidon. However, his mother was married to Aegeus, the king of Athens. Aegeus agreed to declare the child as his if it was a boy, but he devised a special test as to determine who the child’s biological father was. Once Theseus had completed this test, he could go to Athens and take his rightful place as heir to the crown prince.

Aegus kept a sword and a pair of sandals in a cave that was covered by an enormous rock. If Theseus could move the rock and recover the tokens, he would prove his royal heritage. So, Theseus grew up with his mother on a small island on the Mediterranean Sea. Once he was of age, his mother told him about his father and Theseus managed to retrieve the royal tokens. But by the time he made it to Athens, the city was under attack by Crete, a rising superpower.

Every year, the Cretans took 14 prisoners from Athens, 7 men and 7 women. Theseus, volunteered as a captive because he wanted to put an end to the Cretans once and for all. And so, he was shipped off to Crete along with 13 other men and women. Every time the ships returned from Crete, they had black sails and flags as a sign of grievance for the people they lost.

So, before Theseus left for Crete, his father requested him to change the color of the ships flag to white as a sign that he had survived. He had been held captive by Minos’ army and was chosen to be sacrificed to the Minotaur. But Theseus was intelligent. He used a roll of string to mark his way in the Labyrinth and when he meets the Minotaur, he engages in combat.

He finally managed to bring down the beast and returned to his kingdom in triumph. However, while he was sailing home, he got so caught up in the festivities that he forgot his promise to his father. When the king saw the ship sailing to port with its usual black flag, he was so devastated that he threw himself out of a window and died. So, when Theseus returned to Athens, he was not only celebrated as a hero, but also became the new king of Athens.

Labyrinths can symbolize many things in our life. However, I believe that they symbolize the many paths and decisions in our lives that all lead to different outcomes. This story symbolizes how greed always gets the better of us and how the evils in our lives can be defeated through courage, bravery, and intelligence.

Greek culture and history surround us even today. We use their symbols and words from their language. Their history reflects everywhere including in Indian traditions. It is well known that the Indians and the Greeks communicated several times.

We shared knowledge with each other. They taught us the art of sculpting. There are even many myths that claim that the Greek god Dionysus came to India on his journey introducing wine and conquering new lands around the world.

The ancient Greek language is now extinct, and the language spoken in preset day Greece is the only one from its family.

But this doesn’t mean that their culture is dead, their culture still flourishes and will continue to, as it is one of the richest in the world.

(The writer is a Class 8th student at Delhi Public School, Guwahati. email: novanita_21@yahoo.co.in)

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